Python 3 beta installation issues

[Ragnar0k]

Greetings all!

So I've been using *nix in various forms for a couple of years now and I've always meant to get into programming. I can deconstruct, alter and build with a few web languages I happened to pick up but I have nothing solid. I decided to change that and pick up Python after finding a well written (for me, anyway) book called "A Byte of Python".

Problem is, the book comes in two varieties, one concerning the 2.5 version and one the soon-to-be-released 3 version, and seeing as 3 will pop out soon I decided to learn the more modern variant. Here's the hard part, I can get python 3 to run dandy in a windows environment but I can't get it to 'stick' in ubuntu. I get the source, configure, make etc but I can't seem to use it afterwards. Help! Some rough steps to get it to interpret my code properly would be grand.

Also, will forcing the newer version of python break my old 2.5 dependant applications?

Many thanks in advance,
-Rag

[Def13b]

I'm not to sure about your specific issue but this might help as an alternative,

http://blog.carlosgabaldon.com/calabro/blog/post/2008/02/03/Installing-Python-3000-on-OS-X

I know it says OS X but I followed these steps on Ubuntu and have for awhile now been using Python 3 by starting the interpreter (or script) at the command line with, 'python3.0' without any issues. Using 'python' still brings up 2.5.2 as per normal.

This was the first program install where I'd ever run into 'configure', 'make' etc and there were errors, I'm not sure if this is because I did something wrong or P3k is still in beta or what but there are some things that don't work in P3k which are suppose to, which can be frustrating. As a result I still use 2.5.2 for basically everything and only use P3k to mess around and when I want easy access to a new feature like bin().